owl." But, as in so many other cases, here are instances of "Partial evil-universal good," the objections to which grow less as we examine more carefully into them. It may be as well to note one or two points. In the first place, it would involve not a diminution but a very large increase in the amount of animal suffering if birds and beasts were permitted to die "of old age," since, to them, it would mean dying by slow starvation. A quicker and earlier death is better for them, beside making room for more of animal life, and therefore a larger total of enjoyment. Then, these animals furnish useful and suitable food for other tribes which are dependent on them for subsistence; and thereby the predaceous kinds keep the non-predaceous in check, and in so doing prevent a very serious evil. For want of such natural checks, seemingly harmless animals grow to be more formidable than tigers or crocodiles, because more difficult to repress. In some parts of our Australian colonies, rabbits have multiplied to a most alarming extent; while mice and rats have at various times become objectsof positive terror to man. And even in our own country the insane ignorance of farmers and gamekeepers has often so disturbed the balance of power in the animal kingdom around them, that Nature has taken a fearful revenge on their crops through the agency of her insect hosts. THE MERLIN. Among our native Hawks, the Merlin, or Stone Falcon, is а permanent resident in the northern parts of our island, breeding there, and then moving t south on the approach of winter. It is about a foot in length, and is a most rapid flyer, capturing its prey by sheer swiftness of movement. It feeds on larks, thrushes, and other small birds, but will even attack game. Its nest is slight, made of sticks, lined with wool or grass, and placed on the ground, often among heather. The eggs, four to six in number, are laid early in June; they are at first violet red with red-brown spots, but their brightness soon fades. Mr. Harting mentions this among the "Birds of Middlesex" as having been captured on Hampstead Heath, and on the River Brent. It is, however, a rare bird so near to the metropolis. EMPEROR MOTH. and multiplied over the country, and from a diet of insects and worms he passed on to fruit, wheat, and rye. The damage is represented as enormous, and Legislatures of States are framing Bills against the sparrow. Texas and Ohio have led the way, drawing up an ironclad Bill, in which he is depicted "in his true light as a bird of bad habits and infamous character, of inordinate appetite, too much given to wheat, and particularly self, and the enemy of all the native American birds, whom he to fruit, which he ruins by pecking out the best portions for himhas completely driven out of their own country." The alleged change of food on the part of the sparrow is quite credible though perhaps not creditable, and, I believe, it will be found that neither birds nor insects are so strictly confined to one kind of diet that they do not occasionally change from animal to vegetable. My friend Mr. J. R. Clifford and myself have noted this in relation to so-called dlow a "carnivorous" beetles. It is probably a minor but wise provision to prevent starvaotion when the usual food grows scarce. orlw Mentioning sparrows reminds me that when the first Crystal Palace was erected in Hyde Park numbers of these inquisitive birds made their way in, flew up to the glazed roof, and there were fairly "caged." The question was asked of the great Duke of Wellington, "What can be done to get rid of these troublesome sparrows?" "Try a sparrow-hawk," said the great soldier. It was a wise answer, for it pointed to Nature's method of keeping one tribe of animals in check by another. LAND SHELLS. Please to take notice also that autumn is the best time for collecting Land Shells. The animals are full-grown, and the winter rains have not, as yet, taken the bloom off their shelly coverings. Mr. Ta former page (p. 359), I Harting remarks that shortly after rain has set in is the period which brings out the largest number of mollusks, which sometimes emerge from their mentioned this beautiful insect as an easy one to rear. During the present hiding-places in such numbers as to give rise to month the larva may be reports of showers of snails," occasionally recorded found on heather, its lovely in provincial newspapers. In open country, early green colour harmonising well with its food plant. morning is the best time, but in moist woods shells Our artist has figured most accurately the perfect soils are the most favourable, and many species of may be bagged all day long. Limestone and chalk male, with the pear-shaped chrysalis and the singular horsetails" and grasses, which contain a large perflask-like cocoon, cut open to show the curious arrangement of fibres at the narrow end, designed to prevent the ingress of intruders, while allowing the moth to force its way out. Apropos of our paragraph on Birds of Prey," an amusing paragraph appeared in the Times newspaper a few weeks ago, which we copy for our readers' information, and also as an illustration of the balance of life above referred to. Allowing for American tendencies to exaggeration and caricature the sparrow is just a case in point : "A change has come over the feeling with which the English sparrow is regarded in the United States. No settler received a warmer welcome than he when he was first set free in New York, but now scarcely anybody has a good word for him. His piquant, saucy ways, which were at first very attractive, now aggravate his offences. It appears that he is now without a friend, universally execrated and denounced, and grave men are devising schemes for getting rid of him as an impertinent, dangerous, and troublesome little nuisance. He rapidly spread centage of earthy salts, are frequented by mollusks on that account. I gladly take this opportunity of calling my readers' attention to a marvellously cheap series of "Handbooks" for "Young Collectors" just being issued by Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. I have seen one on Beetles, a second on Butterflies and Moths, a third on Shells, and a fourth on Birds, all by able writers, and published, with illustrations, at the price of One Penny each! I hope they will largely increase the number of young collectors-and of readers of our 'Ology Page. Ponds and streams may also be explored for aquatic mollusks now grown to "man's estate"-or what answers thereto in molluscan experiences. my readers may have met with, or may yet meet with, in this season's holiday. Chalk, as most folks know, is a vast mass of what once was sea-sediment; the washings-down of limestone rocks, mingled with the remains of plants and animals which tenanted those primeval waters. Such remains are much more abundant than a casual examination would suggest; Foraminifera, &c., from in fact, it is only when we Chalk. bring the microscope to bear on a few grains of chalk that we learn what a wealth of life inhabited, and still inhabits, the ocean. Where water trickles down a chalk cliff, you may often notice little cavities and "pondlets" where the chalk rock has been dissolved into a sort of whitewash. Let a little of this "batter" be taken, and put into a wine-glass of water; allowed to settle for a short time, poured off, and the experiment repeated twice or thrice, you will then get a coarse deposit which is well worthy of careful inspection. If laid on a glass slide, moistened with a drop of spirits of turpentine, and viewed by a low power of the microscope, such forms as those figured in the annexed cuts will be distinguished among less definite objects. Please to note Foraminifera and Sponge Spicules in particular. FORAMINIFERA. What are Foraminifera ? The lowliest and simplest animals known to the naturalist are minute lumps of shapeless jelly, having no distinct limbs or organs. The next lowest in the scale are animal-jellies, which have the power to form shells-minute, but wonderfully beautiful and diversified. These are known as the foraminifera, since these tiny shells have still tinier holes pierced in them (foramina), through which the animals thrust forth thread-like arms of almost inconceivable fineness. Recent foraminifera may be collected from sea sand; those found in chalk are of course true fossils. horny substance which is so familiar to us, and which forms their united "skeleton." Scattered through this skeleton are found little sharp fragments of flint, which are termed "spicules." In the sponges of commerce there are very few, but in certain other species they become so numerous as to render the substance quite unsuitable for washing purposes. You might as well scrub the dear baby with a paper of mixed pins! If a fragment of such sponge be burnt, treated with a little nitric acid, and then washed with water, the flinty spicules will be left. Their forms are varied, and they are pretty objects for a microscope. nodule is supposed to represent the spot on the seabottom where a sponge or some similar organism lived and died, and was buried by the accumulating sediment. The waters are supposed to have held flint in solution, and the flint crystallised round the sponge, not merely covering it, but gradually replacing its component particles by flinty ones. Hence it is that on breaking a chalk flint it generally exhibits traces of animal structure. The several rows of flints in the chalk rock are also judged to represent successive generations of sponges entombed in their turn by the ocean sediment. SEA ANEMONES. Most young people when at the seaside are attracted by the Actina or Sea Anemones, if the coast be favourable for these curious animals. Their forms have become very familiar to us of late years, through the establishment of public Aquaria, as at Brighton, Sydenham, and elsewhere. They are mentioned now to illustrate our point-that the animals may be taken as representing those which form our corals (madrepore, brainstone, &c.), the only difference consisting in this, that the coral-polypes live in companies and secrete lime from the surrounding waters; the anemones are solitary and do not secrete earthy matter. FLUSTRA. Blown about by the sea breezes, no object is commoner on some coasts than the Flustra. Yet it is generally taken for a seaweed. If its brown, leaf-like surfaces be examined, however, they will be seen to be covered with minute pits. When the animal was alive in the sea, each of these pits was tenanted by a tiny polype, with mouth, stomach, and arms-the whole forming one colony of living creatures. Ammonite. The Nautilus and the Ammonite, two of the largest of our marine fossil shells, are not uncommon in many of our native formations. At Folkestone, in the blue clay called gault, many beautiful specimens are found. They were inhabited by mollusks, similar to the highly-organised Cuttle-fish of our present seas. Attend carefully to details of your business. Be prompt in all things. Consider well, then decide positively. Dare to do right, fear to do wrong. Endure trials patiently. Fight life's battle bravely, manfully. Go not into the society of the vicious. Hold integrity sacred. Injure not another's reputation nor business. Join hands only with the virtuous. Keep your mind from evil thoughts. Lie not for any consideration. Make few acquaintances. Never try to appear what you are not. Observe good manners. Pay your debts promptly. Question not the veracity of a friend. Respect the counsel of your parents. Sacrifice money rather than principle. Touch not, taste not, handle not intoxicating drinks. Use your leisure time for improvement. Venture not upon the threshold of wrong. Watch carefully over your passions. 'Xtend to every one a kindly salutation. "The God of Israel is He that giveth strength and power unto His people."-Ps. lxviii. 35. HERE is one thing which boys always admire, and that is strength. If there is a boy in a school who can wrestle and run and leap, who can throw a ball and use a bat better than any other boy in the school, that boy is sure to be a hero. He must be a very disagreeable boy not to be admired. Now, what is true of boys at school was true also of the men who lived long ago in the boyhood of our race. In those old times there was one thing men always admired, and that was bodily prowess and strength. And so it is that from these old days we have such wonderful stories of men who were noted for their size and might, and for the marvellous feats of strength which they performed. All ancient histories are full of them. Greek history had, as you know, its Hercules; Roman history had its Castor and Pollux. Some of these stories doubtless were wild and foolish, though some probably rested upon facts. Now, it would be a very strange thing if we did not find something corresponding to all this-only more sober and trustworthy-in this ancient story of the Hebrew people. And, as a matter of fact, we do; we find the story of Goliath and we find this story of Samson, in reference to whom our Golden Text is taken. Samson was noted for his strength and courage and daring, so he became one of the people's heroes, and so for twenty years "he judged Israel." Now, I want you to notice a change. How is it we don't hear now of these giant-heroes? How is it our histories and our newspapers are not full to-day of the doings of men distinguished only by their size and strength? The reason, I think, is mainly this: as the world gets older (and the same is true of boys) men find something which, in the long run, is really more powerthat there is something better than mere bodily strength ful. They find out that mind, not matter, rules the world, and so our heroes and our great men of to-day are not the men who stand a foot or eighteen inches higher than their fellows, who have arms like whipcord and hands that could fell an ox, they are the men of brains, the men, as we say, of mental power. Even the great soldiers of modern times are not necessarily tall, or large, or powerful of body. Napoleon, the greatest soldier, perhaps, which this century has seen, was quite a little man; hence it was that his soldiers called him "the little corporal." Brains, not muscles, win our modern battle. But, now, I want you to notice something else. There is, if I mistake not, a still further change which is taking place. Mental power is higher than bodily, but there is something further, there is something greater and better even than intellectual power (good, very good although that is), and that something is character, and most of al the character that rests on Faith in Ged, and that shows itself in love towards Him. Moral power, not intellectual. is the highest and the mightiest. This is what the Apostle Paul said when he wrote. "God hath chosen the weak things of the world to corfound the mighty." And this it is which the Lord Jesus meant when He exclaimed, "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast ordained strength." Now, le us understand that all strength comes to us from God. Bodily strength is His gift, intellectual strength is His endowment, but, above all, strength of soul, the strength that rests on faith and love, and that shows itself in patience, and trust, and self-denial, and power to forget ourselves, this is His bestowment and the result of His Spirit working in our hearts. "The God of Israel is He that giveth" THIS "strength unto His people." And this strength is the best and the mightiest of all. One other thing I want to say. We read of Samson. that the Philistines which he slew at his death were |